TEDxPrishtina Women, this thursday

This Thursday at the American School of Kosova, the first of its kind TEDx event will be organised in Prishtina, featuring primarily Kosovo women as speakers.

TEDx events are fully planned and coordinated independently, on a community-by-community basis, and Prishtina so far had to TEDx events, but this one is the first one to be focused on a specific gender.

TEDxPrishtina Women is being organised by seven young people, some still university students and some recently graduated, while the list of speakers as we are getting closer to the event gets updated on a more frequent basis.

Annea Hapciu will be presenting on how her undergraduate research into The Internal Effect of the Kosovo: The Young Europeans Nation Branding campaign on the Kosovar People has led to the concept of “using your passions, to change reality”.

Mrika Aliu will be presenting on how her concern on a cause in her neighbourhood has led her to founding and leading a student organisation â€“ the winner of philanthropic prize for implementing more than 40 community activities a year, the community organisation being considered the best practice of youth community service and the source of volunteers for most of NGOs.

Petrit Bejdoni will be presenting on the process that a young boy undergoes while trying to become a man of the 21st century: and how he was raised as a boy in his family, under the influence of the society, media and the division of gender roles.

Ajete Kerqeli will speak on the importance of gender integration in the workplace, with a special emphasis on her recent activity within the project Pro WO+MAN with Peer Educators Network organization.

Diana Pirana will discuss on the importance of breast cancer awareness and the vast chances that women have of healing it when discovering breast cancer early, when it is easier to treat, and when survival outcomes are more hopeful.

Vjollca Konjufca, will share her experience as a successful Kosovar woman in the U.S, while during her stay at Washington University she worked on: recombinant vaccine development; host-pathogen interactions; mechanisms of antigen uptake and presentation.

Florentina Dushi, will be present speaking more on the obstacles she faced as a woman entrepreneur in Kosovo, and ways to overcome those obstacles. Since 2010, she is the co-founder of the private enterprise, Business Development Institute LLC.

Nina Pelkonen, who works in Kosovo as an investigator in the war crimes investigation unit in Eulex, and as a Case Manager for war crimes against women â€“ sexual abuse and rape. She is implementing an important approach to reach our for female victims of war through local NGO’s, village elderly and private contacts, in order to find victims who still want to talk to the police and want ask for justice for what happened to them.

Jeta Xharra, is the Kosovo director of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) as well as a presenter on, and the editor-in-chief of, “Life in Kosovo”, which combines investigative journalism and discussions. Xharra will present a brand of journalism in Kosova that had to reinvent itself and go beyond bare reporting in order to have a real effect in exposing corruption in a country where the powers that be are largely male, unaccountable and, sometimes, threatening.

TEDWomen, San Francisco

In San Francisco for the first time, TEDWomen 2013 will channel the bootstrap spirit of Silicon Valley to celebrate invention in all its forms. Not just technology and things, but also solutions to poverty; approaches to peacemaking; expressions of art, and, at times, our own lives.

More than 150 TEDx events around the world will take part, sharing the livestream and presenting local speakers around the theme “Invented Here.” The result: A truly global conversation — from San Francisco to S Paulo to Seoul — celebrating inventors and designers; thinkers and makers; local problem-solvers and global leaders.

As part of the TEDWomen conference, local TEDx events around the world will be surfacing and celebrating innovative people in their own communities, including the TEDx event in Prishtina and the TEDx event in Tirana on the 6th of December.

Digital Spoiler explores the startup ecosystem of the Balkans, through inspiring stories, latest news, interviews, and even in-depth content about each country of the region and the established startups.